Second year Lexi Vesselinov will join other undergraduates as a part of this honors program at UVA.

Ingrassia Family Echols Scholars Research Grants are awarded to undergraduate Echols Scholars to support independent or faculty directed research. Ava will continue to study the effects of inflammasome activation on seizure propagation with this award.

In the Lukens lab’s most recent attempt to be the coolest/wackiest lab in the BIG center, all members went all out during the return of our lab spirit week

Granted by UVA’s Queer Alumni Network (QVA), the Page Award is granted to undergraduate and graduate students based upon community engagement, campus involvement in LGBTQ+ spaces/missions, and academic performance.

Ashley, Hannah, Kristine, Coco, and Jessica all completed degrees from UVA this year! 💙 🧡

Coco’s thesis for the Distinguished Majors Program (DMP) is titled “Roles for the microglial receptor CLEC7A and the SYK/CARD9 signaling axis in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis“.

Congratulations to Kristine Zengeler for defending her dissertation research and being officially named Dr Glue!

Congratulations to undergraduate Coco Holliday for accepting an offer from Harvard University to join their Immunology PhD program. We are incredibly proud and can’t wait to see all of the amazing science she will do!

Congratulations to undergraduate Abhi Verma for being awarded a prestigious Harrison Fellowship, and also for crushing the Charlottesville 10 miler!

Congratulations to Dr. Ashley Bolte and Dr. Katherine Bruch who both matched for residency!

Congratulations to Dr. Hannah Ennerfelt for being named the Outstanding Graduate Student in Neuroscience this year, as well as winning the Peach Outstanding Graduate Student Award!

Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Lexi Vesselinov and graduate student Lexi Johnson for being awarded a Double Hoo Award!

Jess Thanos nailed her solo performance of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas“, a duet sang with fellow Neuroscience Graduate Program student, David Tyus. Their graduate student a capella group, The First Harmonics, performed a diverse lineup of songs during their beautiful winter concert.

We had an amazing time catching up with colleagues, making new science friends, sharing cool new data, and enjoying the California sunshine.

Themes included: Twin Day, Brain Immunology and Grain (BIG) Farmer’s Day, Festive/Ugly Sweater Day, Swaggy Shoe (Dress Like John) Day, and Pajama Day.

The lab had a great time catching up with all of our Neuroscience Department friends at the holiday party held at The Graduate.

The Lukens lab enjoyed exploring Shenandoah in the fall on the annual BIG center hike. Huge thank you to Harris lab members Isaac and Lydia for organizing this great event!

Hannah had a killer thesis defense, with the published findings now out in Cell! Congratulations, Dr. Ennerfelt, we wish you the best in your next step as a postdoc at Stanford!

The Bowman Award is given to a fourth year medical student who best exemplifies the spirit and ideals of Dick Bowman.